AT&T, the University of North Texas and Bigbelly, which makes cloud-connected, trash-compacting bins, have joined to enhance connectivity for students on the Denton, TX campus. The carrier has deployed nine of Bigbelly’s Telebelly small cell siting solutions, which is North America’s first Telebelly deployment at a major University. The small cell/trash compactors are located in places where the students congregate, such as the student center, dormitories, and libraries.
Bigbelly, which has trash bin deployments at 200 colleges, already had a presence at the university. It was approached by the university to host the telecom equipment. Bigbelly is the owner/operator of the small cell system and deployed small cells with space for additional carriers.
Alex Gamota, Bigbelly Senior Vice President of ICT, told Inside Towers that the company is flexible about ownership of the Telebelly small cell systems, having sold them outright to tower companies as well as the carriers.
“But in certain circumstances, the carriers have actually asked us to retain ownership and become that owner/operator,” Gamota said. “Our number one priority is to get the product out to market to show that this is another tool that can be in the toolkit over the longer term.” Different business models will depend on the needs of the carrier, he added.
The Telebelly technology concept is technology and vendor agnostic, according to Gamota. The university is investigating adding a private network to backhaul cameras, WiFi, at a streetlight. The Telebelly is designed with room in the base for the additional radios.
“Instead of having to deploy power and fiber to a different set of small cells, they have an opportunity of actually sharing those costs with the carrier at what otherwise would have been just strictly a small cell location,” Gamota said. “In a public space, you really want to minimize the footprint of any one of those networks. Being able to converge it all onto one piece of street furniture provides a lot of benefits from just that planning perspective.”
By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor
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